


Those That Are Left Behind

by Poplitealqueen



Series: Little Dáin Ironfoot Fics [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Amputee Dain, Angst, Dwarves, Dáin Ironfoot Appreciation Society, Dáin is a nice guy even when he's hurting and...ooh...feel it right in your heart. Ouch, Ficlet, Gen, Kid!Dáin, post Battle of Azanulbizar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3255779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poplitealqueen/pseuds/Poplitealqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Death is harder on those who are left behind."<br/>- Robert La Fosse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those That Are Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> It's a Dáin ficlet, kiddos. One where he isn't some grasping, evil hobgoblin. A kid!Dáin ficlet to be specific, with lots of feels, banter, and *vague hand gesture* things.
> 
> I like Dáin. I like him lots. I think of him as a wild, but well meaning dude. He's gone through hard, hard times, yet he always manages to endure. He's only tempered, never broken.
> 
> Anywho, yes. Go Dáin. Go Dáin. Go Dáin and Thorin being rambunctious cousins, and Dáin being clever enough to know just what to say to pull Thorin out of his funk, even for a bit.
> 
> Enjoy,
> 
> poplitealqueen, high queen of the backs of knees.

The quill quivers in his fingers, and Dáin mutters a curse. He has to stop himself from tearing the sheepskin parchment in half--it doesn't do to waste good material, no matter what foul mood bothers him. He instead runs a knuckle between his eyes, tugs and pulls at his braids till they hang limp from his head, shifts his position on the pallet...but the words, Mahal damn them, the words won't come.

How is he to tell his kin back home that he's now their lord? A lad of only thirty-two.

He stuffs the parchment under his pillow with a harrumph, and stares at wall. There isn't much else to do, and no one to talk to. Thorin had growled his way into getting Dáin his own private healer's tent, and no matter how much he'd protested against it Thorin had remained adamant.

 It doesn't take long before he pulls himself, trembling and shaking, from the cot. Bandages still sticky and wet from blood stick his stump of a foot fast to the linens, but with a bit of effort its free. Dáin doesn't bother with a wince as he grabs his makeshift crutches, and sets about getting himself upright: it'd hurt more having the damned thing cut off, and grown dwarrow didn't cry after a thing like that happened to them! He'd been weaned on stories of dwarves returning from battle tough as diamond, with emotions burnished to a fine point: and _nothing_ could ever hurt them again, the end. He hopes that last part happens to him soon. He  _prays_ it will.

The young dwarf hobbles out of the makeshift healer's tent before a fuss can be made, and onto the grounds of war. The battle before the Dimrill Gate had ended nearly a fortnight past, but still they stayed. To honor the dead. The countless, innumerable dead. Dáin tries to purge the thought from his mind as he concentrates on balancing, yet still the old metal catches on a near-invisible crack in the grey earth.

A hand shoots out to catch his shoulder, and a flinty voice says:

"Steady there, laddie. Can't have you playin' in the mud."

Dáin turns his head.

"Aye, Balin, aye," he says lightly. "I'm too old fer that now, eh?" He coughs a chuckle at the older dwarf, and he sees the effort the son of Fundin takes to return it. He sees pain and pity in those merry eyes. "Ach, I'm only kiddin'," he adds as an afterthought.

"Aye...too old," Balin nods at him, patting his shoulder, "What are ya doing out of bed, lad? Thorin told ya to stay put."

"I was actually gonna go see him," Dáin puts on the most childish face he can, for Balin's sake, "I'm a lord now, aren't I? Folks don't tell lords where they can an' can't go. Besides, it's awful in there!" he grumbles petulantly. "Nothin' to do but stare at cloth walls an' wish I could itch my bleedin' foot."

"Now that's your age showin! Try to wait to make such claims _after_ your beard grows in," Balin says with an actual laugh, his face brightening up. "Oh, off with ya, laddie. It'll do Thorin some good t'see ya."

"Oy, I do too have a beard!" Dáin calls after his retreating back.

With Balin gone, Dáin ducks between two tents, and tugs self-consciously at the bristled peach fuzz of his 'beard'. Aye, he knows to call it that now is a fancy on his part, but he looks forward to the day when it will be as big and red as his father's had been, or with a mustache as impressive as his mother's... _had_ been. _Had been._

He feels tears prickle his eyes, and his throat begins to close up. Dáin swallows, "Don't be a wee bairn, Dáin," he says to himself, pretending its his father and mother scolding him for causing a ruckus in the training yard. "Ya killed a giant bloody orc, ya had your foot cut off for Mahal's sake! Don't go cryin' for no good reason t'all." (He doesn't dare to think of what he'd seen lurking in the dark just beyond the gates, the terror still too fresh). Wiping a sleeve under his nose, Dáin slaps his cheeks a few times, and continues on his way.

Thorin's pavilion is surrounded by dwarves from all corners of the world when Dáin reaches it. Dark-skinned Blacklocks with their fierce eyes and maroon tattoos; strong-armed Ironfists with spikes on their knuckles; eerily pale and soft-spoken Stiffbeards (though Dáin had seen how ferociously they'd fought, and silently tucks it away not to disregard his quiet northern kin); bright-haired Firebeards; big-footed Stonefoots, stout Broadbeams with beards near as thick as he, and many other sorts that he could not guess where they hailed from. None seemed willing to enter, though.

His kin from the Iron Hills spare him some words--call him Lord Dáin and bow, or nod in silent understanding--and usher themselves and the others to part like a sea to allow him through to the tent's flap. Its strange not to be treated like a boy for once, and though Dáin would have felt a sense of pride before all this, now he only feels pain, deep in his gut, keener than the dull throb in his stump . He wishes his father and mother were there to tell him what to do.

He enters, and the stuffy, sparse space is dark save for one gutted candle. Thorin leans over a makeshift table covered with parchments and maps, with large bags hanging beneath his eyes.

"I said no one was to enter," he snarls. "Off with you before--"  He looks up, and Dáin rolls his eyes at him. Thorin's hard gaze softens.

"Mahal will weep when ya take back Erebor, with negotiation skills like that." Dáin says as he takes a seat. 

Thorin grunts in response, eyes turning back to the papers before him. Dáin has no inkling what they could be for.

"Can't say I'd be much better," he continues. " An' all that mess ya have there makes me doubly glad I'll never have t'worry about being a king."

Again, Thorin offers no response, save a jaw-cracking yawn. 

Dáin gives his cousin a long look, "Ya look awful, cousin," he says. "Yer shoulders are all stooped, an' ya look like you haven't seen a wink o' sleep in years."

"What are you doing up, Dáin?" Thorin finally asks. "You should be in the healer's tent."

"You should too, by the looks of ya. I just wanted to see how things were comin' about," answers Dáin. "Any sign of Uncle Thráin?"

"No."

Its a quiet answer, pitiful even. Dáin thinks he might even see his stoic cousin cry, but Thorin never cries. Not like Dáin--Thorin is tough, but his body seems to cave in on itself even more with the muted, tiny word. 

Now he feels proper awful. "I'm sorry, Thorin.  Ach, I'd stick a foot in my mouth if I had one to spare," Dáin says, and reaches for some of the papers Thorin won't stop staring at. "Here. Lemme help."

"No," Thorin repeats adamantly, though his pull on the parchments is light. " You're still healing, Dáin. You need rest."

"Aye, don't we all," he replies, tugging harder. "Come on. It's what family is for!"

"I said _no,_ " Thorin answers back irritably, clutching fast at the parchments. "Heed me."

" _You_ heed _me!"_ Dáin bellows back, and gives a last mighty pull. There was a sudden loosening, and the parchment tore.

Both of them fall back. Dáin laughs as Thorin pushes himself to his feet.

"That is it!" and there was his old cousin back for a moment: all haughty privilege, and an utter joy to annoy. "You're going back even if I have to _drag_ you!"

"I'd like to see ya try, ya shaven craven!" mocks Dáin playfully as he grips at the table edge to hoist himself up.

Thorin is upon him in moments, tackling him full body to the ground. The pained wheeze that escapes Dáin when his stump of a leg smacks the ground is an unwanted surprise to them both. Somehow, in the heat of the moment, neither had recalled it.

His lack of a foot acts like a sudden shock, and sends Thorin hopping off his cousin with wide eyes and an apology already leaving his lips.

He'd never done that before. _Never._ Dáin hates it. Of all the things Thorin had to worry over, he should not be one of them.

"Ach, ya daft bastard! I could kick your arse with both arms an' my eye missing, too!" He yells, and pushes himself to standing, sweeping Thorin's feet out from underneath him with his crutch.

Thorin lands with an _oof!_ and Dáin looms over him, for once the taller one.

"Don't be gettin' a big head now!" Dáin snaps down at him. "You're not much older'n me, cousin. An' soon I'll be the one writing reports and handlin' boring political relations whilst I confine you to bed an' boredom."

Thorin smiles. A slight tug of one side of his lips, but a smile nonetheless. It reminds Dáin of his beard: not quite there yet, but getting close. One day, it would be the greatest of smiles (as his beard would be the greatest of beards). Dáin grins back widely, and for an instant both forget their pain, their losses, their terrible burdens only just beginning to grow. And they are young again.

Thorin laughs as he leans forward on his elbows, "Bet ya can't do that a second time!"

\------

Upon his return to the Iron Hills, Dáin is greeted by two very unexpected things: a new foot,  made of iron and inlaid with the runes of his house, sturdy and strong and no doubt able to bash  an orc's head in with one firm stomp (though he's told not to repeat that bit in front of the lords and ladies of his home. He does so anyway, with a wide uncaring smile on his face) and-- strangest of all-- a piglet.

The thing wriggles and snorts when Dáin picks it up, thumping its hard little feet upon his breast. It's a wild-looking creature: all gristly hide and mad hair; loud as a thunderstorm, too. Dáin adores it instantly.

Along with it comes a letter written in familiar brash, curling script:

**Reminded me of you.**

**-Thorin**

 

Lovely art by [rainglazed](http://rainglazed.tumblr.com/post/120375769370/project-love-up-fic-writers-may-2-those-that)

**Author's Note:**

> Khuzdul Translations  
>  _dwarrow_ = dwarves
> 
> *I'm just gonna take the easy way out, and say I'm using movie!Balin instead of book!Balin, because the book one is a whole 4 years older then Dáin. What a difference right? So, movie one it is.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Dain's First Pig](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3655029) by [applepieisworthit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/applepieisworthit/pseuds/applepieisworthit)
  * [Those That Are Left Behind [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418288) by [the_dragongirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dragongirl/pseuds/the_dragongirl)




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